Saint Augustin by Louis Bertrand

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In those years the Bishop of Milan might, indeed, pass for a happy man
in the eyes of the world. He was the friend of the very glorious and
very victorious Theodosius; he had been the adviser of the young Emperor
Gratian, but lately assassinated; and although the Empress Justina, devoted
to the Arians, plotted against him, he had still great influence in the
council of Valentinian II--a little Emperor thirteen years old, whom a
Court of pagans and Arians endeavoured to draw into an anti-Catholic
reaction.

Almost as soon as Augustin arrived in Milan, he was able to see for himself
the great authority and esteem which Ambrose possessed, the occasion being
a dispute which made a great noise.

Two years earlier, Gratian had had the statue and altar of _Victory_
removed from the _Curia_, declaring that this pagan emblem and its
accompaniments no longer served any purpose in an assembly of which the
majority was Christian. By the same stroke, he suppressed the incomes of
the sacerdotal colleges with all their privileges, particularly those of
the Vestals; confiscated for the revenue the sums granted for the exercise
of religion; seized the property of the temples; and forbade the priests
to receive bequests of real estate. This meant the complete separation
of the State and the ancient religion. The pagan minority in the Senate,
with Symmachus, the Prefect, at its head, protested against this edict.
A deputation was sent to Milan to place the pagan grievances before
the Emperor. Gratian refused to receive them. It was thought that his
successor, Valentinian II, being feebler, would be more obliging. A new
senatorial committee presented themselves with a petition drawn up by
Symmachus--a genuine piece of oratory which Ambrose himself admired, or
pretended to admire. This speech made a deep impression when it was read
in the Imperial Council. But Ambrose intervened with all his eloquence.
He demanded that the common law should be applied equally to pagans as to
Christians, and it was he who won the day. _Victory_ was not replaced in
the Roman _Curia_, neither were the goods of the temples returned.

Augustin must have been very much struck by this advantage which
Catholicism had gained. It became clear that henceforth this was to be
the State religion. And he who envied so much the fortunate of the world,
might take note, besides, that the new religion brought, along with the
faith, riches and honours to its adepts. At Rome he had listened to the
disparaging by pagans and his Manichee friends of the popes and their
clergy. They made fun of the fashionable clerics and legacy hunters. It was
related that the Roman Pontiff, servant of the God of the poor, maintained
a gorgeous establishment, and that his table rivalled the Imperial table in
luxury. The prefect Prætextatus, a resolute pagan, said scoffingly to Pope
Damasus: "Make me Bishop of Rome, and I'll become a Christian at once."

Certainly, commonplace human reasons can neither bring about nor account
for a sincere conversion. Conversion is a divine work. But human reasons,
arranged by a mysterious Will with regard to this work, may at least
prepare a soul for it. Anyhow, it cannot be neglected that Augustin, coming
to Milan full of ambitious plans, there saw Catholicism treated with so
much importance in the person of Ambrose. This religion, which till then he
had despised, now appeared to him as a triumphant religion worth serving.

But though such considerations might attract Augustin's attention, they
took no hold on his conscience. It was well enough for an intriguer about
the Court to get converted from self-interest. As for him, he wanted all or
nothing; the chief good in his eyes was certainty and truth. He scarcely
believed in this any longer, and surely had no hope of finding it among
the Catholics; but still he went to hear Ambrose's sermons. He went in the
first place as a critic of language, with the rather jealous curiosity of
the trained man who watches how another man does it. He wanted to judge
himself if the sacred orator was as good as his reputation. The firm and
substantial eloquence of this former official, this statesman who was more
than anything a man of action, immediately got control of the frivolous
rhetorician. To be sure, he did not find in Ambrose's sermons the
exhilaration or the verbal caress which had captivated him in those of
Faustus the Manichean; but yet they had a persuasive grace which held him.
Augustin heard the bishop with pleasure. Still, if he liked to hear him
talk, he remained contemptuous of the doctrine he preached.

Then, little by little, this doctrine forced itself on his meditations:
he perceived that it was more serious than he had thought hitherto, or,
at least, that it could be defended. Ambrose had started in Italy the
exegetical methods of the Orientals. He discovered in Scripture allegorical
meanings, sometimes edifying, sometimes deep, always satisfying for a
reasonable mind. Augustin, who was inclined to subtilty, much relished
these explanations which, if ingenious, were often forced. The Bible
no longer seemed to him so absurd. Finally, the immoralities which the
Manichees made such a great point of against the Holy Writ, were justified,
according to Ambrose, by historical considerations: what God did not allow
to-day, He allowed formerly by reason of the conditions of existence.
However, though the Bible might be neither absurd nor contrary to morals,
this did not prove that it was true. Augustin found no outlet for his
doubts.

He would have been glad to have Ambrose help him to get rid of them. Many a
time he tried to have a talk with him about these things. But the Bishop of
Milan was so very busy a personage! "I could not ask him," says Augustin,
"what I wanted as I wanted, because the shoals of busy people who consulted
him about their affairs, and to whose infirmities he ministered, came
between me and his ear and lips. And in the few moments when he was not
thus surrounded, he was refreshing either his body with needful food, or
his mind with reading. While he read his eye wandered along the page and
his heart searched out the meaning, but his voice and his tongue were at
rest. Often when we attended (for the door was open to all, and no one was
announced), we saw him reading silently, but never otherwise, and after
sitting for some time without speaking (_for who would presume to trouble
one so occupied?_) we went away again. We divined that, for the little
space of time which was all that he could secure for the refreshment of his
mind, he allowed himself a holiday from the distraction of other people's
business, and did not wish to be interrupted; _and perhaps he was afraid
lest eager listeners should invite him to explain the harder passages of
his author, or to enter upon the discussion of difficult topics_, and
hinder him from perusing as many volumes as he wished.... _Of course
the reason that guided a man of such remarkable virtue must have been
good...._"

Nobody could comment more subtly--nor, be it said also, more
maliciously--the attitude of St. Ambrose towards Augustin, than Augustin
himself does it here. At the time he wrote this page, the events he was
relating had happened a long time ago. But he is a Christian, and, in his
turn, he is a bishop: he understands now what he could not understand
then. He feels thoroughly at heart that if Ambrose withdrew himself, it
was because the professor of rhetoric was not in a state of mind to have a
profitable discussion with a believer: he lacked the necessary humility of
heart and intellect. But at the moment, he must have taken things in quite
another way, and have felt rather hurt, not to say more, at the bishop's
apparent indifference.

Just picture a young writer of to-day, pretty well convinced of his value,
but uneasy about his future, coming to ask advice of an older man already
famous--well, Augustin's advances to Ambrose were not unlike that, save
that they had a much more serious character, since it was not a question of
literature, but of the salvation of a soul. At this period, what Augustin
saw in Ambrose, even when he consulted him on sacred matters, was chiefly
the orator, that is to say, a rather older rival.... He enters. He is shewn
into the private room of the great man, without being announced, _like any
ordinary person_. The great man does not lay aside his book to greet him,
does not even speak a word to him.... What would the official professor of
Rhetoric to the City of Milan think of such a reception? One can make out
clearly enough through the lines of the _Confessions_. He said to himself
that Ambrose, being a bishop, had charge of souls, and he was surprised
that the bishop, no matter how great a lord he might be, made no attempt
whatever to offer him spiritual aid. And as he was still devoid of
Christian charity, no doubt he thought too that Ambrose was conscious
that he had not the ability to wrestle with a dialectician of Augustin's
strength, and that, into the bargain, the prelate was to seek in knowledge
of the Scriptures. And, in truth, Ambrose had been made a bishop so
suddenly that he must have found himself obliged to improvise a hasty
knowledge. Anyhow, Augustin concluded that if he refused to discuss, it was
because he was afraid of being at a disadvantage.

Very surely St. Ambrose had no notion of what the catechumen was thinking.
He soared too high to trouble about miserable stings to self-respect. In
his ministry he was for all alike, and he would have thought it against
Christian equality to shew any special favour to Augustin. If, in the brief
talks he had with the young rhetorician, he was able to gather anything of
his character, he could not have formed a very favourable opinion of it.
The high-strung temperament of the African, these vague yearnings of the
spirit, these sterile melancholies, this continual temporizing before the
faith--all that could only displease Ambrose, the practical Roman, the
official used all his life to command.

However that was, Augustin, in following years, never allowed himself the
least reproach towards Ambrose. On the contrary, everywhere he loads him
with praise, quotes him repeatedly in his treatises, and takes refuge on
his authority. He calls him his "father." But once, when he is speaking
of the spiritual desolation in which he was plunged at Milan, there does
escape him something like a veiled complaint which appears to be aimed at
Ambrose. After recalling the eagerness with which he sought truth in those
days, he adds: "If any one could have been found then to trouble about
instructing me, he would have had a most willing and docile pupil."

This phrase, in such marked contrast with so many laudatory passages in
the _Confessions_ about St. Ambrose, seems to be indeed a statement of
the plain truth. If God made use of Ambrose to convert Augustin, it is
nevertheless likely that Ambrose personally did nothing, or very little, to
bring about this conversion.

IV

PLANS OF MARRIAGE

But even as he draws nearer the goal, Augustin would appear, on the
contrary, to get farther away from it. Such are God's secret paces, Who
snatches souls like a thief: He drops on them without warning. Till the
very eve of the day when Christ shall come to take him, Augustin will be
all taken up with the world and the care of making a good figure in it.

Although Ambrose's sermons stimulated him to reflect upon the great
historical reality which Christianity is, he had as yet but dim glimpses
of it. He had given up his superficial unbelief, and yet did not believe
in anything definite. He drifted into a sort of agnosticism compounded of
mental indolence and discouragement. When he scrutinized his conscience to
the depths, the most he could find was a belief in the existence of God and
His providence--quite abstract ideas which he was incapable of enlivening.
But whatever was the use of speculating upon Truth and the Sovereign Good!
The main thing to do was to live.

Now that his future was certain, Augustin endeavoured to arrange his life
with a view to his tranquillity. He had no longer very large ambitions.
What he principally wanted to do was to create for himself a nice little
existence, peaceful and agreeable, one might almost say, middle-class. His
present fortune, although small, was still enough for that, and he was in a
hurry to enjoy it.

Accordingly, he had not been long in Milan ere he sent for his mistress and
his son. He had rented an apartment in a house which gave on a garden. The
owner, who did not live there, allowed him the use of the whole house. A
house, the dream of the sage! And a garden in Virgil's country! Augustin,
the professor, should have been wonderfully happy. His mother soon joined
him. Gradually a whole tribe of Africans came down on him, and took
advantage of his hospitality. Here was his brother, Navigius, his two
cousins, Rusticus and Lastidianus, his friend Alypius, who could not make
up his mind to part from him, and probably Nebridius, another of his
Carthage friends. Nothing could be more in harmony with the customs of the
time. The Rhetorician to the City of Milan had a post which would pass
for superb in the eyes of his poor relations. He was acquainted with very
important people, and had access to the Imperial Court, whence favours and
bounties came. Immediately, the family ran to put themselves under his
protection and be enrolled beneficiaries, to get what they could out of
his new fortune and credit. And then these immigrations of Africans and
Orientals into the northern countries always come about in the same way. It
is enough if one of them gets on there: he becomes immediately the drop of
ink on the blotting-paper.

The most important person in this little African phalanstery was
unquestionably Monnica, who had taken in hand the moral and material
control of the house. She was not very old--not quite fifty-four--but she
wanted to be in her own country. That she should have left it, and faced
the weariness of a long journey over sea and land, she must have had very
serious reasons. The poverty into which she had fallen since the death of
her husband would not be an adequate explanation of her departure from
her native land. She had still some small property at Thagaste; she could
have lived there. The true motives of her departure were of an altogether
different order. First of all, she passionately loved her son, to the point
that she was not able to live away from him. Let us recall Augustin's
touching words: "For she loved to keep me with her, as mothers are wont,
yes, far more than most mothers." Besides that, she wanted to save him. She
completely believed that this was her work in the world.

Beginning from now, she is no longer the widow of Patricius: she is already
Saint Monnica. Living like a nun, she fasted, prayed, mortified her body.
By long meditating on the Scriptures, she had developed within her the
sense of spiritual realities, so that before long she astonished Augustin
himself. She had visions; perhaps she had trances. As she came over the sea
from Carthage to Ostia, the ship which carried her ran into a wild gale.
The danger became extreme, and the sailors themselves could no longer hide
their fear. But Monnica intrepidly encouraged them. "Never you fear, we
shall arrive in port safe and sound!" God, she declared, had promised her
this.

If, in her Christian life, she knew other minutes more divine, that was
truly the most heroic. Across Augustin's calm narrative, we witness the
scene. This woman lying on the deck among passengers half dead from fatigue
and terror, suddenly flings back her veils, stands up before the maddened
sea, and with a sudden flame gleaming over her pale face, she cries to the
sailors: "What do you fear? We shall get to port. _I am sure of it!_" The
glorious act of faith!

At this solemn moment, when she saw death so near, she had a clear
revelation of her destiny; she knew with absolute certainty that she was
entrusted with a message for her son, and that her son would receive this
message, in spite of all, in spite of the wildness of the sea--aye, in
spite of his own heart.

When this sublime emotion had subsided, it left with her the conviction
that sooner or later Augustin would change his ways. He had lost himself,
he was mistaken about himself. This business of rhetorician was unworthy
of him. The Master of the field had chosen him to be one of the great
reapers in the time of harvest. For a long while Monnica had foreseen the
exceptional place that Augustin was to take in the Church. Why fritter
away his talent and intelligence in selling vain words, when there were
heresies to combat, the Truth to make shine forth, when the Donatists were
capturing the African basilicas from the Catholics? What, in fact, was the
most celebrated rhetorician compared to a bishop--protector of cities,
counsellor of emperors, representative of God on earth? All this might
Augustin be. And he remained stubborn in his error! Prayers and efforts
must be redoubled to draw him from that. It was also for herself that she
struggled, for the dearest of her hopes as a mother. To bear a soul to
Jesus Christ--and a chosen soul who would save in his turn souls without
number--for this only had she lived. And so it was that on the deck, tired
by the rolling of the ship, drenched by the seas that were breaking on
board, and hardly able to stand in the teeth of the wind, she cried out to
the sailors: "What do you fear? We shall get to port. I am sure of it...."

At Milan she was regarded by Bishop Ambrose as a model parishioner. She
never missed his sermons and "hung upon his lips as a fountain of water
springing up to eternal life." And yet it does not appear that the great
bishop understood the mother any better than he did the son: he had not
the time. For him Monnica was a worthy African woman, perhaps a little odd
in her devotion, and given to many a superstitious practice. Thus, she
continued to carry baskets of bread and wine and pulse to the tombs of the
martyrs, according to the use at Carthage and Thagaste. When, carrying
her basket, she came to the door of one of the Milanese basilicas, the
doorkeeper forbade her to enter, saying that it was against the bishop's
orders, who had solemnly condemned such practices because they smacked
of idolatry. The moment she learned that this custom was prohibited by
Ambrose, Monnica, very much mortified, submitted to take away her basket,
for in her eyes Ambrose was the providential apostle who would lead her son
to salvation. And yet it must have grieved her to give up this old custom
of her country. Save for the fear of displeasing the bishop, she would
have kept it up. Ambrose was gratified by her obedience, her fervour and
charity. When by chance he met the son, he congratulated him on having such
a mother. Augustin, who did not yet despise human praise, no doubt expected
that Ambrose would in turn pay some compliments to himself. But Ambrose did
not praise him at all, and perhaps he felt rather vexed.

He himself, however, was always very busy; he had hardly any time to profit
by the pious exhortations of the bishop. His day was filled by his work
and his social duties. In the morning he lectured. The afternoon went in
friendly visits, or in looking up men of position whom he applied to for
himself or his relations. In the evening, he prepared to-morrow's lecture.
In spite of this very full and stirring life, which would seem to satisfy
all his ambitions, he could not manage to stifle the cry of his heart in
distress. He did not feel really happy. In the first place, it is doubtful
whether he liked Milan any better than Rome. He felt the cold there very
much. The Milanese winters are very trying, especially for a southerner.
Thick fogs rise from the canals and the marsh lands which surround the
city. The Alpine snows are very near. This climate, damper and frostier
even than at Rome, did no good to his chest. He suffered continually from
hoarseness; he was obliged to interrupt his lectures--a most disastrous
necessity for a man whose business it is to talk. These attacks became so
frequent that he was forced to wonder if he could keep on long in this
state. Already he felt that he might be obliged to give up his profession.
Then, in those hours when he lost heart, he flung to the winds all his
youthful ambitions. As a last resort, the voiceless rhetorician would take
a post in one of the administrative departments of the Empire. The idea of
being one day a provincial governor did not rouse any special repugnance.
What a fall for him! "Yes, but it is the wisest, the wisest thing,"
retorted the ill-advising voice, the one we are tempted to listen to when
we doubt ourselves.

Friendship, as always with Augustin, consoled him for his hopeless
thoughts. Near him was "the brother of his heart," the faithful Alypius,
and also Nebridius, that young man so fond of metaphysical discussions.
Nebridius had left his rich estate in the Carthaginian suburbs, and a
mother who loved him, simply to live with Augustin in the pursuit of truth.
Romanianus was also there, but for a less disinterested reason. The Mæcenas
of Thagaste, after his ostentatious expenditure, found that his fortune
was threatened. A powerful enemy, who had started a law-suit against him,
worked to bring about his downfall. Romanianus had come to Milan to
defend himself before the Emperor, and to win the support of influential
personages about the Court. And so it came about that he saw a great deal
of Augustin.

Besides this little band of fellow-countrymen, the professor of rhetoric
had some very distinguished friends among the aristocracy. He was
especially intimate with that Manlius Theodorus whom the poet Claudian
celebrates, and to whom he himself later on was to dedicate one of his
books. This rich man, who had been Proconsul at Carthage, where no doubt he
had met Augustin, lived at this time retired in the country, dividing his
leisure hours between the study of the Greek philosophers, especially of
the Platonists, and the cultivation of his vineyards and olive trees.

Here, as at Thagaste, in these beautiful villas on the shores of the
Italian lakes, the son of Monnica gave himself up once more to the
sweetness of life. "I liked an easy life," he avows in all simplicity.
He felt himself to be more Epicurean than ever. He might have chosen
Epicureanism altogether, if he had not always kept a fear of what is beyond
life. But when he was the guest of Manlius Theodoras, fronting the dim blue
mountains of lake Como, framed in the high windows of the _triclinium_,
he did not think much about what is beyond life. He said to himself: "Why
desire the impossible? So very little is needed to satisfy a human soul."
The enervating contact of luxury and comfort imperceptibly corrupted him.
He became like those fashionable people whom he knew so well how to charm
with his talk. Like the fashionable people of all times, these designated
victims of the Barbarians built, with their small daily pleasures, a
rampart against all offensive or saddening realities, leaving the important
questions without answer, no longer even asking them. And they said:
"I have beautiful books, a well-heated house, well-trained slaves, a
delightfully arranged bathroom, a comfortable vehicle: life is sweet. I
don't wish for a better. What's the use? This one is good enough for me."
At the moment when his tired intellect gave up everything, Augustin was
taken in the snare of easy enjoyment, and desired to resemble these people
at all points, to be one of them. But to be one of them he must have a
higher post than a rhetorician's, and chiefly it would be necessary to put
all the outside forms and exterior respectability into his life that the
world of fashion shews. Thus, little by little, he began to think seriously
of marriage.

His mistress was the only obstacle in the way of this plan. He got rid of
her.

That was a real domestic drama, which he has tried to hide; but it must
have been extremely painful for him, to judge by the laments which he gives
vent to, despite himself, in some phrases, very brief and, as it were,
ashamed. In this drama Monnica was certainly the leader, though it is
likely that Augustin's friends also played their parts. No doubt, they
objected to the professor of rhetoric, that he was injuring his reputation
as well as his future by living thus publicly with a concubine. But
Monnica's reasons were more forcible and of quite another value.

To begin with, it is very natural that she should have suffered in her
maternal dignity, as well as in her conscience as a Christian, by having to
put up with the company of a stranger who was her son's mistress. However
large we may suppose the house where the African tribe dwelt, a certain
clashing between the guests was unavoidable. Generally, disputes as to
who shall direct the domestic arrangements divide mother-in-law and
daughter-in-law who live under one roof. What could be Monnica's feelings
towards a woman who was not even a daughter-in-law and was regarded by her
as an intruder? She did not consider it worth while to make any attempt at
regulating the entanglement of her son by marrying them: this person was
of far too low a class. It is all very well to be a saint, but one does
not forget that one is the widow of a man of curial rank, and that a
middle-class family with self-respect does not lower itself by admitting
the first-comer into its ranks by marriage. But these were secondary
considerations in her eyes. The only one which could have really preyed on
her mind is that this woman delayed Augustin's conversion. On account of
her, as Monnica saw plainly, he put off his baptism indefinitely. She was
the chain of sin, the unclean past under whose weight he stifled. He must
be freed from her as soon as possible.

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